The Third Bouquet
by smileyanne
Summary: Gibbs has neglected a certain someone for five years now. And now at a time when he should be fleeing for his freedom, he decides to remedy it. Set after season 10 finale.


_A/N: While I try to fix Not Her. I'm just using up the stories I've had stored up for awhile now. Okay so I don't really like this one, and I warn you it's probably AU. Cuz I can't really picture Gibbs saying any of this stuff._

_DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN NCIS_

* * *

He knew he should've been gone by then. Be on the path leading to a deserted airstrip, that would take him away from here.

But he couldn't go...not yet.

He had no idea if he would come back from this, alive or as a free man.

There was no way of knowing yet.

So regardless of the risks, he managed to procure three bouquets of flowers.

One of roses.

One of sunflowers.

And one of orchids.

He ignored the bouquet of orchids. He didn't want to acknowledge what...or _who _those were for. Not until he had to.

So he drove to Arlington, and walked to their graves. A bouquet of roses and sunflowers in each hand.

Shannon had always been into the 'classics'.

Roses for Shannon.

Kelly had always been a summer kind of girl. She liked sunlight, bright colors, and playing till dust.

Sunflowers for his baby girl.

He stayed with them for a while, just staring at their graves. The night was silent around them.

And he made no move to break it.

There was a weird longing in him. On one hand he wasn't ready to die, and on the other hand...he hadn't been afraid of death for a long time.

Not now, especially when there were just as many people to convince him to go on this 'suicide mission' regardless of the consequences. As there were to convince him to stay, in relative safety.

Was it wrong that he measured people in numbers now?

Or that he'd been doing it for so long now that he'd forgotten when he'd started?

Still, what else was he suppose to do when he seemed to be loosing more and more loved ones everyday?

Starting with the gravestones in front of him.

It was-_no_. Even if this was just in his thoughts-what happened to them would _never _be okay.

He was simply..._resigned _to it now.

* * *

He thought about the extra bouquet.

The gravestone he didn't know if he could see again..._yet_.

But he didn't have all the time in the world, and he didn't know if he could forgive himself for leaving without seeing her.

Slowly, on weak knees, he knelt down in between the gravestones. One hand on each of them, he pressed a kiss to the cold..._cold _stones.

First to his lovely Shannon then to his sweet baby Kelly.

It was just as hard as it had always been to walk away from them.

But he did it, like he always eventually managed to, and made it back to his truck. He didn't pause there, didn't give himself the chance to get in the drivers seat and just drive away.

Instead he grabbed the bouquet of orchids gently in his grip, phalaenopsis orchids.

Her favorite.

His feet trudged slowly as he made his way through the cemetery. In an opposite direction then before.

And even though he'd only been to..._it _once, he had no problem finding it.

Standing in front of the slab of marble, he had no problem making out the words through the dark.

_NCIS Director Jennifer Shepard_

He was standing in front of the grave of the Director Shepard. A woman who was known for letting the 'power go to her head'.

A woman who was still equal parts ignored and revered on the 'Hill'.

That's not how he saw it.

To him he wasn't standing in front of the grave of Jennifer Shepard, Director of NCIS. He was standing in front of the grave of Jenny.

Jen.

* * *

Shannon, Kelly..._Jenny_, this was slowly killing him.

Shannon and Kelly, what had happened to them still hurt. Hurt like hell in fact, but he was resigned to it.

After...well close to..._twenty years_, that's what happens.

Now, Jenny..._that_ was a different story.

Fierce, powerful, unstoppable, _gorgeous_ Jenny. And yet he knew a side of her that was sweet, cuddly, warm, _beautiful _Jenny.

Correction-knew a side of her that..._had been_.

Past tense.

_Right_.

In a way that pulled at whatever heart strings he had left, he sunk to his knees..._again_. Laying the orchids down was heartbreakingly tragic.

This was all such a damned cliché.

Ignoring the throbbing in his knees from the cold hard ground he was kneeling on, he opened his mouth.

"Jenny," he ended up croaking out. He shrugged one shoulder in self-recrimination.

"Sorry, its taken me so long," he broke his rule and..._apologized_.

Something he should've done to her a long, long time ago.

"I'm a coward," he whispered gruffly.

"I'm able to visit..._them_. Even though it hurts like hell. And yet I've...I've tried to...forget you," he admitted.

This wasn't something he was proud of.

"It's..._easier _to just think...that you're out there somewhere. Kicking ass and taking names," his voice was running hoarse with withheld emotions.

"Instead of being..._here_."

Against his will his eyes...watered. Even though no one else was here, and Jenny wouldn't hold it against...he couldn't let himself let it all out.

If he did he didn't know if he would ever recover.

"Well, Jen...I accepted another one," he said resigned, and had the good decency to hang his head.

He knew she wouldn't like that. She always had hated the fact that he was the first on the list when it came to these missions.

"But, I gotta go on this one. Finally all the crap I've done as come back to bite me in the ass."

"Just like you told me it would," he included sarcastically.

The things he did, his team followed. The way he did things, it wasn't their way. They just followed along out of misplaced loyalty.

But it _had _been Jenny's way...it had been _their _way.

"Guess it came back to bite you in the ass also," he muttered.

"It's why I'm doing this. Can't let them take the fall for this. Not like you did."

Oh, no. Jenny had taken the fall for their past deeds, and now he was visiting her grave.

No, he wouldn't be visiting his team's graves...

..._five_..._years _to late.

"Oh, God...Jenny," he groaned, putting his forehead in his palm.

_Five freaking years_.

It was hard to believe that Shannon and Kelly had been gone for close to twenty years now. But, to that he hadn't seen Jenny in five years.

Hadn't seen her, smelt her sweet smelling hair, heard her real vibrant laugh. Hadn't kissed her in _so _many years.

Much more than five.

"Its been too long, Jenny," he moaned.

They'd been _together_, _together _for a year. The first time they'd split had been for six years. And even if they'd horrible in some parts. he'd gotten to be around her for three extra years. Add these five long, _long_ years to it and...

...he'd known her for fifteen years. She'd died before the tenth year.

"You missed our ten year anniversary, Jen." He choked out, desperately trying to ignore the withheld tears clogging his voice.

Ten...fifteen years, he didn't know which one to go with. Either way...he'd known her longer than he'd been married to Shannon.

_It's been too long._

Too long with regrets. Things he should've done differently, things he should've apologized for, things he should've...simply..._said_.

He heard the _ding-ding ding-ding _of the mechanical contraption he despised. But, considering the circumstances he couldn't just ignore it this time.

Pulling his cell phone out of his back pocket, he deftly flipped the screen up. Due to some kind of setting McGee had put on his phone what he assumed was a text message opened automatically.

He didn't check who it was from, but it read...

_'They're going to you're house.'_

Meaning he didn't have much time.

Yet, he couldn't pull himself _away...not yet_.

Tossing his contraption somewhere into the dark depths of the graveyard. He looked back at the marble slab.

"Ha," he scoffed, "damn Jen I don't have much time left," he said bitterly.

There were things he still needed to say! Things he'd had twenty years to try and say to Shannon and Kelly, but..._Jenny_.

He'd been a jackass and had only visited her once before, and now he didn't know if he would get to visit her again.

You know, wherever they all were. He hoped they were together.

He hoped Shannon and Jenny were busy griping over his past and present deeds.

He hoped Jenny had met Kelly, like he knew she'd always wanted to. Ever since she had found out about the big thing he had never told her.

And even though both Shannon and Jenny were fierce, they were different in two fundamental ways.

He hoped Jenny was protecting both Shannon and Kelly.

He trusted her to.

And he hoped that Shannon and Kelly were making Jenny happy again.

He hoped they were all ridiculously, deliriously happy.

And somewhere in a secret little place inside his mind, he hoped he would be joining them soon.

From the night around them he heard the mechanical beeping of his phone again.

The clock was ticking even faster now.

His heart hammered at the thought of leaving her again, the first few separations were always the hardest.

He thought about a rule that Jenny had, in Europe when they'd been going on missions every other day.

...A rule she'd had even if they weren't going on missions...

It was as if her lips were right by his ear, whispering in her husky alto tone.

_"Never, ever leave without kissing me goodbye."_

She had kissed him, right before she had left the plane he'd end up riding back on alone.

She had kissed him, granted on the cheek, in her office the day before she had left for California.

He _should've _seen it then.

He'd already broken his own rule here, and to break hers too?

Faintly, he heard the sounds of his phone again. Now, the clock wasn't just ticking.

He was out of time.

_'There were things he should've listened to her about.'_

_"One day Jethro, all of the crap you've pulled is going to come back and bite you in the ass."_

_'Rules he should've and shouldn't have broken.'_

_"Never leave without kissing me goodbye."_

_'Things he should've said back to her...'_

_"Jethro...I love you."_

Her soothing butterscotch voice whispered in the wind. Bringing with it memories, regrets, things he'd managed to get right, and things he'd screwed to hell and back.

There was _so _much to say.

_And he was out of time._

He knew then that if he ever set foot back in D.C. It would be as a free man, or he would be in a coffin.

If he managed to make it back to D.C. Then he wasn't going to be prevented from coming back here by iron bars and restrictions.

Either way he _would be _seeing her again. Whether it be in a darkened cemetery with orchids as a bribe for his misdeeds. Or in person, like he oh so not so secretly wished.

Because there was still too many things he had to say.

But for now this would have to do.

Gently he scooted forward, not minding that he was most likely ruining his jeans. Only being careful not crush the delicate orchids.

He stopped when he was only inches from the slab of delicate stone.

"Jenny," this time his voice wasn't weak and guilty. It was determined. He knew what he was going to do, and he knew that either way he would be seeing her again, soon.

"I know you hate me a little bit. When you told me that you loved me, and," at this he paused, "like the jackass I am I said, 'That'll be the day'."

Here he leaned forward a little, as if he were confiding his deepest darkest secret to a piece of stone. And in a way, he _was_.

"The truth was, I was afraid. _Ha_," he scoffed at himself.

"No the was...I was _terrified_," he admitted.

He needed to explain himself. Jenny wouldn't understand, and she'd end up being even more pissed at him than she surely already was. And believe it or not, he never had like it when Jenny was mad at him.

"I-I was terrified, because...when you...said..._that_, it made me so _happy_." The last part spilled out in a jumbled mess.

"And...dammit Jenny...before I was with you...I hadn't been happy in _so long_. Being with you, when you admitted _that_, it made me realize that I was relying on _you _for that happiness."

The pricking behind his eyes became worse, and overcome with emotion he had to bow his head, setting his jaw hard. Oh god, he didn't know if he was going to be able to do this...

The incessant trilling of his phone reminded him that he_ had_ to...

"And I realize that I wasn't ready to admit this..._then_, or..._six years later_," he managed to grit out though the fact that his teeth were clenched so hard he thought they were going to shatter.

Tensely he leaned all the way forward, until his lips touched the cold, _cold _rock.

And though it felt like he was having to make every bone in his body physically comply, he stood up stiffly.

Looking down at the permanently engraved cursive words, he felt a traitorous salty tear run solitary down his cheek.

"But...I love you Jen...Always have."

"Always will," he tacks on because it's the truth.

As he manages to pry himself away, and starts the walk through the dark cemetery back to his truck he knows it's true.

For the past five years he'd been trying to lie to himself.

Two bouquets.

Two graves.

Two kisses to cold, _cold _gravestones.

His girls.

Roses, sunflowers, and..._orchids_.

_Three _bouquets.

_Three _graves.

_Three _kisses.

And as he's starting his truck, getting the ready to get the hell out of town, he smiles. Though every bone in his body was screaming at him to go back. He's happy because he knows the truth now.

Somewhere, someplace, _his girls _were together. Looking out for each other, for him, waiting for him to come and join them.

They were together.

All _three _of them.

* * *

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